The best way to get rid of pests, in an environmentally friendly way, is to find something that eats those pests. Cats, for example, are a good way to keep mice out of a home and ladybugs have been used for years to control aphids on plants. What about pollution? Is it possible to use plants to control pollutants? It turns out the answer, in some cases, is yes.

Researchers from the University of the Philippines, Los Baños have discovered a new plant species which consumes nickel from the soil it grows in. The Rinorea niccolifera, found in the metal rich soils of Luzon Island in the Phillippines, can accumulate nickel in its leaves up to 18,000 parts per million (PPM).

That level is nearly one thousand times higher than what most living species will tolerate. According to the Code of Federal Regulations of the United States of America, for example, the maximum allowable level of nickel in drinking water is 0.1 parts per million.

Nickel absorbing plants are rare. Even in soils with high concentrations of the metal, less than one percent of native plants are able to absorb it. Globally only 450 of 300,000 vascular plant species have demonstrated the ability to consume nickel.

Such plants are becoming highly sought after for environmental and industrial purposes.

“Hyperacccumulator plants have great potentials for the development of green technologies, for example, ‘phytoremediation’ and ‘phytomining,'” explains Dr. Augustine Doronila of the School of Chemistry, University of Melbourne in a statement.

Phytoremediation involves using plants such as Rinorea niccolifera to remove heavy metals from contaminated soils. Similarly phytomining uses plants to recover microscopic amounts of valuable substances from metal-rich sites.

A full introduction to Rinorea niccolifera is available in the open access journal PhytoKeys.